Category: Helpful Information

Looking for more financial education news, topics and tips — and can’t wait until the next quarterly Iowa Jump$tart newsletter? Sign up for National Jump$tart’s Financial Fridays e-newsletters — and get new tips every Friday! Click here to subscribe.

The National Jump$tart Coalition has announced a new program, called Groundswell, to help parents, grandparents and guardians advocate for financial education in their schools. The goal of the program is to help increase the number of K-12 students who receive financial education in the classroom by 25 percent by 2025. “Parents, grandparents and guardians are the most vocal advocates for their own kids’ education,” said Laura Levine, president and CEO of the Jump$tart Coalition. Jump$tart is planning to develop a virtual toolkit for those interested in taking part in the effort. Click here to learn more.

In 2017, the Investor Protection Institute (IPI) and state securities agencies sponsored the DASH for the STASH contest in which an estimated 1,300 individuals participated in. DASH for the STASH is a “scavenger hunt”- like contest that teaches and then quizzes participants on investing topics such as financial fraud, building a nest egg, selecting financial advisers and the cost of investment fees. A total of 138 public libraries and other locations in eight jurisdictions participated in the contest. Participating jurisdictions included Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and the District of Columbia.

Of the 1,300 individuals who participated at host locations, 346 submitted completed responses and 171 of those responses had the correct answers. One individual, from each of the jurisdictions, who submitted all correct answers was randomly selected as a winner and received a $1,000 IRA contribution.

The DASH for the STASH contest also included an online version for the first time in 2017. The online version was open to anyone, regardless of location, and ran from April 1, 2017, to October 31, 2017. Of the 184 completed online responses, 53 were correct and seven winners were randomly selected to receive $150 IRA contributions.

Between the DASH host locations and online version, 15 winners were selected. Of those 15, two winners were from Iowa.

A 37 year-old male in Urbandale, Iowa won a $1,000 IRA fund contribution by participating at the Mason County Public Library. He said, “I found the DASH for the STASH fun and very informational. The posters were full of financial information and descriptions that helped me understand different options for our money to work for us.”

A 29 year-old female in Des Moines, Iowa won a $150 IRA fund contribution by participating in the DASH national online version and said, “DASH for the STASH was not only fun but it gave me the foundation I needed to get started with my own retirement fund!”

In addition to IPI, other organization that were involved with the 2017 DASH for the STASH included Alaska Division of Banking and Securities, the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation Securities Division, the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions, the Ohio Division of Securities, the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, and the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office.

For more information about the 2017 DASH for the STASH, click here. Information on whether the DASH will occur in 2018, has not yet been released.

Champlain College’s Center for Financial Literacy in Burlington, Vt. has recently graded all 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) on financial literacy at the high school level. Iowa was one of the 11 states that earned a “C” on the National Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools.

For the 2017 report card, states were measured on whether they have a personal finance education course as a graduation requirement, made personal finance a part of a required course or had finance education in its academic standards that were expected to be taught.

Although there have been some improvements since the last report card, released in 2015, the results could be better. Of all the 50 states and D.C. that were graded, only five states earned an A: Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. To earn an “A” these states require personal finance instruction as a graduation requirement that is equal to a one-semester, half-year course (minimum of 60 hours of personal finance instruction in an academic year).

In the report, it explains Iowa does not require a specifically identified course with personal finance concepts as a graduation requirement. Rather, Iowa’s core standards define the expectations and content of what all student should know and be able to do by Grade 12. To see these standards, click here.

Thanks to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Money Smart Week partners have access to all promotional materials at no cost. The free promotional items include a flyer, bookmark, postcard and statement stuffer, which can all be ordered in quantities of 100, 300, 600, and 1,000.

To order your promotional materials, click here. All shipments will take 3 – 4 weeks for delivery.

Find even more financial literacy resources by signing up for the Department of Education’s quarterly Financial Literacy Update. Click here to view past issues and to sign up for this additional quarterly newsletter resource.

In collaboration with Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF), the Iowa Council on Economic Education is offering a one-day professional development workshop for personal finance educators. This workshop will be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s West Des Moines branch located at 7601 Office Plaza Drive North #150 in West Des Moines. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. with the workshop being held from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 10.

Next Gen Personal Finance will facilitate their highly successful “FINCAMP”. Their experts will dig deep into the details of personal finance topics helping to equip teachers better cover financial literacy concepts to their students.

A $50 stipend will be provided to all workshop participants at the conclusion of the training session, and for educators traveling more than 2 hours to attend this PD and additional $100 will be provided to help offset travel costs!

1. Know what you spend. Carry a small spiral notebook for a month and write down everything you buy with cash or debit cards. Other spending will show up in your checkbook register or credit card statement. 2. Spend less than you make. If you find that you spend more than you make, you will need to either make more or spend less. The option of using credit […]

Some people who have fluctuating monthly incomes find it difficult to know how to set up a monthly budget. Let me give you some advice on how that is done. It may be a bit more difficult to figure it out, but with a little planning and forethought it is certainly within your reach to do. Let’s break it down into three steps: Step 1. Determine how much money […]